Foundation

From September 21 to September 29, 2017, a pilgrimage of the John Paul II fellowship awardees to Italy was organized. As a part of the ongoing pilgrimage, young people have already visited Venice, where a Mass at the St. Mark basilica was the main point of the visit. The mass was celebrated by Rev. Robert Ptak. On the subsequent days of the pilgrimage, young people visited, among others: St. Peter’s Basilica, Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls, St. Peter in Vincoli Church and Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore. On Sunday, September 24, Cardinal Stanisław Ryłko, President of the Administrative Council of the John Paul II Foundation, celebrated a mass for the Foundation’s fellowship awardees from Lublin and faithful people gathered at the Polish Home on Via Cassia. In the beginning, Cardinal addressed the Young people and others who gathered at the mass: “On behalf of the John Paul II Foundation, I cordially greet all participants of the Foundation fellowship awardees pilgrimage from Lublin along with the Director of the Home, Rev. Jan Strzałka and his co-worker Rev. Robert Ptak. Special greetings are directed to Mrs. Ewa Bednarkiewicz, who gave her heart to the fellowship awardees of the John Paul II Foundation – like her husband late Maciej Bednarkiewicz.

We celebrate this Eucharist at the chapel of the John Paul II Polish Home – a house which is a valuable piece of Polish land in the Eternal City. This is a special place at which numerous memorabilia of St. John Paul II are collected. Here, the presence of John Paul II could be felt almost every step. Each of you, dear young pilgrims, brought to this Eucharist his/her won intentions, as well as intentions of your loved ones. Certainly, through the intercession of John Paul II you would like to entrust to God your youthfulness, your plans for life and future. He, the great friend of young people, will understand you well and will be your great advocate to God.

In this Eucharist, we cannot forget members of the Foundation’s Chapter in Warsaw expressing our thanks for their support given to the John Paul II Home in Lublin. In our prayers, we also do not forget about all benefactors of the Foundation spread all over the world, thanks to whom you can study at the Catholic University of Lublin and upon your return to your homelands you can strengthen the population of the Catholic intelligentsia.”

Then, in the homily, His Eminence Cardinal pointed the remarkable role of our Great Countryman, John Paul II, as a great friend of young people. He said: “Saint John Paul II had a special charisma to make contact with young people around the world. Care of young people was the main priority of His pontificate from the beginning. He had a special love for you; not too many people could understand you the way he did and be sensitive to your problems. And, yet, He was not afraid to impose high, sometimes radical, requirements. He called himself as a friend of young people adding at the same time: a demanding friend. Being with young people was a deep need of His heart. Meetings with youth revived His strength even when He was old. He spoke to young people not only with words, but with His whole body – with a smile, with His gestures which they will remember forever. He counted on the young and they never failed Him…He saw in them important allies and helpers in the evangelization of the modern world. He ensured that during each apostolic pilgrimage there was a meeting with young people. He always had time for them…He searched them, but they also sought Him allowing Him to lead them to the ends of the earth globe – for example during the World Youth Days.

From the beginning of his pontificate – one of the longest ones in history – the journalists were asking themselves: where was the secret of this extraordinary popularity of John Paul II among young people, even when the signs of illness and old age were visible? John Paul II was not only a teacher of young people, but above all He was an authentic witness of Christ. He knew that young people are not searching for Him, but for Christ. He wrote: “Wherever the Pope appears, he everywhere looks for young people and He is sought by young people everywhere. However, actually it is not He they are looking for! It is Christ who they are looking for. Christ who knows “what someone had within” (J2, 25). He was telling them about the fascinating mystery of man who only in Jesus Christ finds its final explanation. And young people were exactly searching for this: they were searching for an answer for the deepest meaning of their lives. And they remained faithful to John Paul II until the end when he returned to the House of the Father in 2005. Hearing their singing coming from St. Peter’s Square, He said with a faint voice” “I was looking for you, and now you came to me.”

When young Jesuit Heronim Fokciński came to Rome to study at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Italy, he did not think that he would spend most of his active life over here nor he was imagining to celebrate his 80th birthday here.

Fr. Hieronim Fokciński was born on September 30, 1937 in Mirowice near Bydgoszcz. In 1954, he joined the Jesuit Society; he began his novitiate in Kalisz, supplementary studies in Poznan, then he studied at the University of Cracow (philosophy) and in Warsaw (theology). Fr. Fokciński was ordained a priest in 1964 in Kalisz and returned to Poznań to study history. In 1970, he went to Italy, to continue his history study of the Church at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. Upon the death of Fr. Eugeniusz Reczek SJ, in May 1971, Fr. Fokciński took over the leadership of the Pontifical Polish Institute for Ecclesiastical Studies in Rome, where archival materials concerning Poland and regions under the influence of the Polish culture are collected and indexed. These materials, mostly in the form of microfilms, were used mostly by researchers in Rome and at the consultation point in Warsaw, which he was able to establish despite problems with at that time communist authorities of Poland.

The next paragraph of Fr. Fokciński’s work began in 1991, when he was appointed as a consultor and a year later as a relator of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. He worked at this important position for almost 20 years leading over 100 beatification processes, including beatification processes of Poles – Rev. Jerzy Popiełuszko, Rev. Franciszek Blachnicki, and Rev. Władysław Bukowiński.

The Friends of the John Paul II Foundation (FJP II) are active in five cities which have the most Polish people in Sweden. This year they are celebrating the 25th anniversary. The anniversary celebrations started with a program which was the same for all – peregrination of the John Paul II Cross from Good Friday of 2005. This event was the initiative of Bogusława Zaniewicz-Dybeck from Stockholm who was also responsible for it, alike the event from the year 2009. At the turn of February and March, the Cross was adored and displayed during the Holy Masses at various parishes of Southern Sweden: in Helsingborg, Landskrona, Malmő and Lund. Photography of John Paul II embracing the Cross taken by Arturo Mari on March 25, 2005 is a memento of the adoration. The prayer, last words of John Paul II directed to us, presented on the back of the photograph was translated into Swedish by Msgr. Mirosław Dudek.

The John Paul II Foundation Chapter is active at the St. Thomas Aquinas Church managed by Dominican Fathers. We are also affiliated with the Polish Catholic Mission (PMK) directed by the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate active at the Blessed Virgin Mary on Rosengård Church in Malmő. In Lund, masses in Polish are celebrated on the 2nd and 4th Sunday of the month. Our 25th anniversary, we celebrated twice in the St. Thomas Church: on April 30th with all multinational parishoners and on May 14th with Polish community of Lund and neighborhood.

The Irish Chapter of John Paul II Foundation met for their monthly Holy Hour and Mass in St Aidan's Adoration Chapel in Ferns, Co Wexford on Tuesday 22nd of August. The date coincided with the celebration of the Queenship of Mary and through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint John Paul II, the Rosary was recited for families and for all members and their work of the John Paul II Foundation throughout the world. This was followed by Silent Adoration and the Holy Hour concluded with a family prayer to John Paul II. Holy Mass was then celebrated by Rev. Fr Billy Swan from Enniscorthy parish.

In Fr Billy's homily, he spoke about one of the most beautiful truths about Jesus is that his whole life is free of ambiguity, if you look at his life from beginning to end, if you look at the circumstances of his death, his life, his birth, all the things recorded in the Gospels of what he did and said, the life of Jesus was wonderfully free of ambiguity. He was an nonviolent creature of the Kingdom of God and he bore witness purely to that in all he did and said. Another person who's life who is marked by a total absence of ambiguity is that of Mary. Her life is also free from any kind of contradiction. She lived what she said, she believed in her son, she gave her yes, she meant it. There is that wonderful consistency between her as a servant of the Lord at the beginning of the Gospel, at the Annunciation, being united with her son, doing whatever he told her, at the Wedding at Cana and then right up to the end, her presence at the foot of the cross and in the Upper Room at Pentecost, she is there at the church, she is there with Christ all along. We look to her as the first person in the Kingdom of God and we see in her a lack of ambiguity, a total purity in which we admire but we also try to imitate. So here this evening for the Queenship of Mary, we pray that our lives may be free from any kind of ambiguity, any way in which we are saying one thing but meaning another, anyway in which we say we believe one thing but really we act in the opposite way. We can become unaware of our blindness, ways in which our faith and our behavior contradict one another. We pray that God may purify us, may make us more united in our spirits, in our wills in our true beliefs and in our way of acting and living and that God may free us from any ambiguity that dims the light of his Gospel that shines from our lives.

Visit to Rome - July 2017

Rev. Fr Billy Swan traveled to Rome at the end of July and met with Rev. Fr Krzysztof Wieliczko, Administrator of the John Paul II Foundation in Rome along with Caroline O Connor, President of the Irish Chapter. Fr Wieliczko and Fr Swan concelebrated Holy Mass at the Tomb of Saint John Paul II on Tuesday morning 25th July and later discussed matters concerning the work of the Irish Chapter.

On September 27, 2017 Kryspina Czerwińska died at the age of 87. She came to the United States in 1971 by the ocean liner “Batory”. Mrs. Kryspina worked at the Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan as a pharmacist until the age of 85 and retired in January 2016. After the accident which took place on the New Year Eve of 2016, she was taken to the hospital and then to a nursing home. After the operation she was using a wheelchair. As she lived alone, she was taken by her family to Warsaw, where she passed away.

It was Mrs. Kryspina who in an interesting way and with a great enthusiasm described all her meetings with the Holy Father Saint John Paul II and encouraged me and others to join the John Paul II Foundation Chapter in New York. She supported the Chapter almost from the first day. Mrs. Kryspina was following the Polish Pope around the world participating in the World Youth Days and other pilgrimages. She was with the Holy Father at the first World Youth Day in Rome in 1985 followed by another World Youth Days with John Paul II in Czestochowa, Denver, Manila, and Toronto. With a great enthusiasm she talked about the John Paul II meeting with young people in the Philippines, in Manila, in which 5 million faithful people participated and which have come to the history as the most colorful, picturesque, spontaneous and the one that put in her heart unforgettable memories. Mrs. Kryspina had the most beautiful memories from the private audiences with St. John Paul II. She was present at funeral, beatification and canonization of the Pope. As a member of the John Paul II Foundation New York Chapter she participated in various religious ceremonies, anniversary masses, banquets, Christmas Wafer meetings, pilgrimages by the footsteps of the Holy Pope as well as in the Chapter’s picnics. All of us remember the cold soup which she was preparing by herself for us for the picnics.